detestation the parasites of the movement andthe truly heroic and high-minded men who have elaboratedits theories and sacrificed comfort and successto their propagation.

[18] The attitude of all the better Anarchists is that expressedby L. S. Bevington in the words: ``Of course we know thatamong those who call themselves Anarchists there are a minorityof unbalanced enthusiasts who look upon every illegal and sensationalact of violence as a matter for hysterical jubilation.Very useful to the police and the press, unsteady in intellectand of weak moral principle, they have repeatedly shown themselvesaccessible to venal considerations. They, and their violence,and their professed Anarchism are purchasable, and inthe last resort they are welcome and efficient partisans of thebourgeoisie in its remorseless war against the deliverers of thepeople.'' His conclusion is a very wise one: ``Let us leaveindiscriminate killing and injuring to the Government--to itsStatesmen, its Stockbrokers, its Officers, and its Law.'' (``Anarchismand Violence,'' pp. 9-10. Liberty Press, Chiswick, 1896.)

The terrorist campaign in which such men asRavachol were active practically came to an end in1894. After that time, under the influence of Pelloutier,the better sort of Anarchists found a lessharmful outlet by advocating Revolutionary Syndicalismin the Trade Unions and Bourses du Travail.[19]

[19] See next Chapter.

The ECONOMIC organization of society, as conceivedby Anarchist Communists, does not differgreatly from that which is sought by Socialists.Their difference from Socialists is in the matter ofgovernment: they demand that government shallrequire the consent of all the governed, and not onlyof a majority. It is undeniable that the rule of amajority may be almost as hostile to freedom as therule of a minority: the divine right of majorities is adogma as little possessed of absolute truth as anyother. A strong democratic State may easily be ledinto oppression of its best citizens, namely, thosethose independence of mind would make them a forcefor progress. Experience of democratic parliamentarygovernment has shown that it falls very farshort of what was expected of it by early Socialists,and the Anarchist revolt against it is not surprising.But in the form of pure Anarchism, this revolt hasremained weak and sporadic. It is Syndicalism, andthe movements to which Syndicalism has given rise,that have popularized the revolt against parliamentarygovernment and purely political means of emancipatingthe wage earner. But this movement mustbe dealt with in a separate chapter.

CHAPTER III

THE SYNDICALIST REVOLT

SYNDICALISM arose in France as a revolt againstpolitical Socialism, and in order to understand itwe must trace in brief outline the positions attainedby Socialist parties in the various countries.

After a severe setback, caused by the Franco-Prussian war, Socialism gradually revived, and in allthe countries of Western Europe Socialist partieshave increased their numerical strength almostcontinuously during the last forty years; but, as isinvariably the case with a growing sect, the intensityof faith has diminished as the number of believershas increased.

In Germany the Socialist party became thestrongest faction of the Reichstag, and, in spite ofdifferences of opinion among its members, it preservedits formal unity with that instinct for militarydiscipline which characterizes the German nation.In the Reichstag election of 1912 it polled a thirdof the total number of votes cast, and returned 110members out of a total of 397. After the death ofBebel, the Revisionists, who received their firstimpulse from Bernstein, overcame the more strictMarxians, and the party became in effect merely oneof advanced Radicalism. It is too soon to guess whatwill be the effect of the split between Majority andMinority Socialists which has occurred during thewar. There is in Germany hardly a trace of Syndicalism;its characteristic doctrine, the preference ofindustrial to political action, has found scarcelyany support.

In England Marx has never had many followers.Socialism there has been inspired in the main by theFabians (founded in 1883), who threw over theadvocacy of revolution, the Marxian doctrine ofvalue, and the class-war. What remained was StateSocialism and a doctrine of ``permeation.'' Civilservants were to be permeated with the realizationthat Socialism would enormously increase theirpower. Trade Unions were to be permeated with thebelief that the day for purely industrial action waspast, and that they must look to government (inspiredsecretly by sympathetic civil servants) to bringabout, bit by bit, such parts of the Socialist programas were not likely to rouse much hostility in the rich.The Independent Labor Party (formed in 1893) waslargely inspired at first by the ideas of the Fabians,though retaining to the present day, and especiallysince the outbreak of the war, much more of theoriginal Socialist ardor. It aimed always atco-operation with the industrial organizations ofwage-earners, and, chiefly through its efforts, theLabor Party[20] was formed in 1900 out of acombination of the Trade Unions and the politicalSocialists. To this party, since 1909, all the importantUnions have belonged, but in spite of the factthat its strength is derived from Trade Unions, ithas stood always for political rather than industrialaction. Its Socialism has been of a theoretical andacademic order, and in practice, until the outbreakof war, the Labor members in Parliament (of whom30 were elected in 1906 and 42 in December, 1910)might be reckoned almost as a part of the LiberalParty.

[20] Of which the Independent Labor Party is only a section.

France, unlike England and Germany, was notcontent merely to repeat the old shibboleths withcontinually diminishing conviction. In France[21] a newmovement, originally known as RevolutionarySyndicalism--and afterward simply as Syndicalism--kept alive the vigor of the original impulse, andremained true to the spirit of the older Socialists,while departing from the letter. Syndicalism, unlikeSocialism and Anarchism, began from an existingorganization and developed the ideas appropriateto it, whereas Socialism and Anarchism began withthe ideas and only afterward developed the organizationswhich were their vehicle. In order to understandSyndicalism, we have first to describe TradeUnion organization in France, and its politicalenvironment. The ideas of Syndicalism will thenappear as the natural outcome of the political andeconomic situation. Hardly any of these ideas arenew; almost all are derived from the Bakunist sectionof the old International.[21] The old Internationalhad considerable success in France before the Franco-Prussian War; indeed, in 1869, it is estimated tohave had a French membership of a quarter of a million.What is practically the Syndicalist programwas advocated by a French delegate to the Congressof the International at Bale in that same year.[22]

[20] And also in Italy. A good, short account of the Italianmovement is given by A. Lanzillo, ``Le Mouvement Ouvrier enItalie,'' Bibliotheque du Mouvement Proletarien. See also PaulLouis, ``Le Syndicalisme Europeen,'' chap. vi. On the otherhand Cole (``World of Labour,'' chap. vi) considers the strengthof genuine Syndicalism in Italy to be small.

[21] This is often recognized by Syndicalists themselves. See,e.g., an article on ``The Old International'' in the Syndicalistof February, 1913, which, after giving an account of the strugglebetween Marx and Bakunin from the standpoint of a sympathizerwith the latter, says: ``Bakounin's ideas are now more alivethan ever.''

[22] See pp. 42-43, and 160 of ``Syndicalism in France,'' LouisLevine, Ph.D. (Columbia University Studies in Political Science,vol. xlvi, No. 3.) This is a very objective and reliable accountof the origin and progress of French Syndicalism. An admirableshort discussion of its ideas and its present position will befound in Cole's ``World of Labour'' (G. Bell & Sons), especiallychapters iii, iv, and xi.

The war of 1870 put an end for the time beingto the Socialist Movement in France. Its revivalwas begun by Jules Guesde in 1877. Unlike the Ger-man Socialists, the French have been split into manydifferent factions. In the early eighties there was asplit between the Parliamentary Socialists and theCommunist Anarchists. The latter thought that thefirst act of the Social Revolution should be thedestruction of the State, and would therefore havenothing to do with Parliamentary politics. TheAnarchists, from 1883 onward, had success in Parisand the South. The Socialists contended that theState will disappear after the Socialist society hasbeen firmly established. In 1882 the Socialists splitbetween the followers of Guesde, who claimed to representthe revolutionary and scientific Socialism ofMarx, and the followers of Paul Brousse, who weremore opportunist and were also called possibilistsand cared little for the theories of Marx. In 1890there was a secession from the Broussists, who followedAllemane and absorbed the more revolutionaryelements of the party and became leading spirits insome of the strongest syndicates. Another groupwas the Independent Socialists, among whom wereJaures, Millerand and Viviani.[23]

[23] See Levine, op. cit., chap. ii.

The disputes between the various sections ofSocialists caused difficulties in the Trade Unions andhelped to bring about the resolution to keep politicsout of the Unions. From this to Syndicalism wasan easy step.

Since the year 1905, as the result of a unionbetween the Parti Socialiste de France (Part; OuvrierSocialiste Revolutionnaire Francais led byGuesde) and the Parti Socialiste Francais (Jaures),there have been only two groups of Socialists, theUnited Socialist Party and the Independents, whoare intellectuals or not willing to be tied to a party.At the General Election of 1914 the former secured102 members and the latter 30, out of a total of 590.

Tendencies toward a rapprochement between thevarious groups were seriously interfered with by anevent which had considerable importance for thewhole development of advanced political ideas inFrance, namely, the acceptance of office in the Waldeck-Rousseau Ministry by the Socialist Millerandin 1899. Millerand, as was to be expected, soonceased to be a Socialist, and the opponents of politicalaction pointed to his development as showingthe vanity of political triumphs. Very many Frenchpoliticians who have risen to power have begun theirpolitical career as Socialists, and have ended it notinfrequently by employing the army to oppressstrikers. Millerand's action was the most notableand dramatic among a number of others of a similarkind. Their cumulative effect has been to produce acertain cynicism in regard to politics among the moreclass-conscious of French wage-earners, and thisstate of mind greatly assisted the spread of Syndicalism.

Syndicalism stands essentially for the point ofview of the producer as opposed to that of the consumer;it is concerned with reforming actual work,and the organization of industry, not MERELY withsecuring greater rewards for work. From this pointof view its vigor and its distinctive character arederived. It aims at substituting industrial for politicalaction, and at using Trade Union organizationfor purposes for which orthodox Socialism wouldlook to Parliament. ``Syndicalism'' was originallyonly the French name for Trade Unionism, but theTrade Unionists of France became divided into twosections, the Reformist and the Revolutionary, ofwhom the latter only professed the ideas which wenow associate with the term ``Syndicalism.'' It isquite impossible to guess how far either the organizationor the ideas of the Syndicalists will remain intactat the end of the war, and everything that we shall sayis to be taken as applying only to the years beforethe war. It may be that French Syndicalism as adistinctive movement will be dead, but even in thatcase it will not have lost its importance, since it hasgiven a new impulse and direction to the more vigorouspart of the labor movement in all civilized countries,with the possible exception of Germany.

The organization upon which Syndicalism de-pended was the Confederation Generale du Travail,commonly known as the C. G. T., which was foundedin 1895, but only achieved its final form in 1902. Ithas never been numerically very powerful, but hasderived its influence from the fact that in momentsof crisis many who were not members were willingto follow its guidance. Its membership in the yearbefore the war is estimated by Mr. Cole at somewhatmore than half a million. Trade Unions (Syndicats)were legalized by Waldeck-Rousseau in 1884,and the C. G. T., on its inauguration in 1895, wasformed by the Federation of 700 Syndicats. Alongsideof this organization there existed another, theFederation des Bourses du Travail, formed in 1893.A Bourse du Travail is a local organization, not ofany one trade, but of local labor in general, intendedto serve as a Labor Exchange and to perform suchfunctions for labor as Chambers of Commerce performfor the employer.[24] A Syndicat is in generala local organization of a single industry, and is thusa smaller unit than the Bourse du Travail.[25] Underthe able leadership of Pelloutier, the Federation desBourses prospered more than the C. G. T., and atlast, in 1902, coalesced with it. The result was anorganization in which the local Syndicat was fed-erated twice over, once with the other Syndicat inits locality, forming together the local Bourse duTravail, and again with the Syndicats in the sameindustry in other places. ``It was the purpose of thenew organization to secure twice over the membershipof every syndicat, to get it to join both its localBourse du Travail and the Federation of its industry.The Statutes of the C. G. T. (I. 3) put this pointplainly: `No Syndicat will be able to form a part ofthe C. G. T. if it is not federated nationally and anadherent of a Bourse du Travail or a local or departmentalUnion of Syndicats grouping different associations.'Thus, M. Lagardelle explains, the two sectionswill correct each other's point of view: nationalfederation of industries will prevent parochialism(localisme), and local organization will check thecorporate or `Trade Union' spirit. The workers willlearn at once the solidarity of all workers in a localityand that of all workers in a trade, and, in learningthis, they will learn at the same time the completesolidarity of the whole working-class.''[26]

[24] Cole, ib., p. 65.

[25] ``Syndicat in France still means a local union--there areat the present day only four national syndicats'' (ib., p. 66).

[26] Cole, ib. p. 69.

This organization was largely the work of Pellouties,who was Secretary of the Federation des Boursesfrom 1894 until his death in 1901. He was an AnarchistCommunist and impressed his ideas upon theFederation and thence posthumously on the C. G. T.after its combination with the Federation desBourses. He even carried his principles into thegovernment of the Federation; the Committee hadno chairman and votes very rarely took place. Hestated that ``the task of the revolution is to freemankind, not only from all authority, but also fromevery institution which has not for its essential purposethe development of production.''

The C. G. T. allows much autonomy to each unitin the organization. Each Syndicat counts for one,whether it be large or small. There are not thefriendly society activities which form so large a partof the work of English Unions. It gives no orders,but is purely advisory. It does not allow politicsto be introduced into the Unions. This decision wasoriginally based upon the fact that the divisionsamong Socialists disrupted the Unions, but it is nowreinforced in the minds of an important section bythe general Anarchist dislike of politics. The C. G.T. is essentially a fighting organization; in strikes, itis the nucleus to which the other workers rally.

There is a Reformist section in the C. G. T., butit is practically always in a minority, and the C. G.T. is, to all intents and purposes, the organ ofrevolutionary Syndicalism, which is simply the creedof its leaders.

The essential doctrine of Syndicalism is the class-war, to be conducted by industrial rather than politi-cal methods. The chief industrial methods advocatedare the strike, the boycott, the label and sabotage.

The boycott, in various forms, and the label,showing that the work has been done under trade-union conditions, have played a considerable partin American labor struggles.

Sabotage is the practice of doing bad work, orspoiling machinery or work which has already beendone, as a method of dealing with employers in adispute when a strike appears for some reasonundesirable or impossible. It has many forms, someclearly innocent, some open to grave objections. Oneform of sabotage which has been adopted by shopassistants is to tell customers the truth about thearticles they are buying; this form, however it maydamage the shopkeeper's business, is not easy toobject to on moral grounds. A form which has beenadopted on railways, particularly in Italian strikes,is that of obeying all rules literally and exactly, insuch a way as to make the running of trains practicallyimpossible. Another form is to do all thework with minute care, so that in the end it is betterdone, but the output is small. From these innocentforms there is a continual progression, until we cometo such acts as all ordinary morality would considercriminal; for example, causing railway accidents.Advocates of sabotage justify it as part ofwar, but in its more violent forms (in which it isseldom defended) it is cruel and probably inexpedient,while even in its milder forms it must tend to encourageslovenly habits of work, which might easily persistunder the new regime that the Syndicalists wishto introduce. At the same time, when capitalistsexpress a moral horror of this method, it is worthwhile to observe that they themselves are the firstto practice it when the occasion seems to them appropriate.If report speaks truly, an example of thison a very large scale has been seen during the RussianRevolution.

By far the most important of the Syndicalistmethods is the strike. Ordinary strikes, for specificobjects, are regarded as rehearsals, as a means ofperfecting organization and promoting enthusiasm,but even when they are victorious so far as concernsthe specific point in dispute, they are not regardedby Syndicalists as affording any ground for industrialpeace. Syndicalists aim at using the strike,not to secure such improvements of detail as employersmay grant, but to destroy the whole system ofemployer and employed and win the complete emancipationof the worker. For this purpose what iswanted is the General Strike, the complete cessationof work by a sufficient proportion of the wage-earnersto secure the paralysis of capitalism. Sorel, whorepresents Syndicalism too much in the minds of thereading public, suggests that the General Strike is tobe regarded as a myth, like the Second Coming inChristian doctrine. But this view by no means suitsthe active Syndicalists. If they were brought tobelieve that the General Strike is a mere myth, theirenergy would flag, and their whole outlook wouldbecome disillusioned. It is the actual, vivid beliefin its possibility which inspires them. They are muchcriticised for this belief by the political Socialistswho consider that the battle is to be won by obtaininga Parliamentary majority. But Syndicalists havetoo little faith in the honesty of politicians to placeany reliance on such a method or to believe in thevalue of any revolution which leaves the power of theState intact.

Syndicalist aims are somewhat less definite thanSyndicalist methods. The intellectuals who endeavorto interpret them--not always very faithfully--represent them as a party of movement and change,following a Bergsonian elan vital, without needingany very clear prevision of the goal to which it is totake them. Nevertheless, the negative part, at anyrate, of their objects is sufficiently clear.

They wish to destroy the State, which theyregard as a capitalist institution, designed essentiallyto terrorize the workers. They refuse tobelieve that it would be any better under State Socialism.They desire to see each industry self-governing,but as to the means of adjusting the relations betweendifferent industries, they are not very clear. Theyare anti-militarist because they are anti-State, andbecause French troops have often been employedagainst them in strikes; also because they areinternationalists, who believe that the sole interest of theworking man everywhere is to free himself from thetyranny of the capitalist. Their outlook on life isthe very reverse of pacifist, but they oppose warsbetween States on the ground that these are notfought for objects that in any way concern theworkers. Their anti-militarism, more than anythingelse, brought them into conflict with the authoritiesin the years preceding the war. But, as was to beexpected, it did not survive the actual invasion ofFrance.

The doctrines of Syndicalism may be illustratedby an article introducing it to English readers inthe first number of ``The Syndicalist Railwayman,''September, 1911, from which the following is quoted:--

``All Syndicalism, Collectivism, Anarchism aims atabolishing the present economic status and existing privateownership of most things; but while Collectivismwould substitute ownership by everybody, and Anarchismownership by nobody, Syndicalism aims at ownership byOrganized Labor. It is thus a purely Trade Unionreading of the economic doctrine and the class warpreached by Socialism. It vehemently repudiates Parliamentaryaction on which Collectivism relies; and it is,in this respect, much more closely allied to Anarchism,from which, indeed, it differs in practice only in beingmore limited in range of action.'' (Times, Aug. 25, 1911).

In truth, so thin is the partition between Syndicalismand Anarchism that the newer and less familiar ``ism''has been shrewdly defined as ``Organized Anarchy.'' Ithas been created by the Trade Unions of France; but itis obviously an international plant, whose roots havealready found the soil of Britain most congenial to itsgrowth and fructification.

Collectivist or Marxian Socialism would have us believethat it is distinctly a LABOR Movement; but it isnot so. Neither is Anarchism. The one is substantiallybourgeois; the other aristocratic, plus an abundant outputof book-learning, in either case. Syndicalism, on the contrary,is indubitably laborist in origin and aim, owingnext to nothing to the ``Classes,'' and, indeed,, resolute touproot them. The Times (Oct. 13, 1910), which almostsingle-handed in the British Press has kept creditablyabreast of Continental Syndicalism, thus clearly set forththe significance of the General Strike:

``To understand what it means, we must rememberthat there is in France a powerful Labor Organizationwhich has for its open and avowed object a Revolution,in which not only the present order of Society, but theState itself, is to be swept away. This movement is calledSyndicalism. It is not Socialism, but, on the contrary,radically opposed to Socialism, because the Syndicalistshold that the State is the great enemy and that theSocialists' ideal of State or Collectivist Ownership wouldmake the lot of the Workers much worse than it is nowunder private employers. The means by which they hopeto attain their end is the General Strike, an idea whichwas invented by a French workman about twenty yearsago,[27] and was adopted by the French Labor Congress in1894, after a furious battle with the Socialists, in whichthe latter were worsted. Since then the General Strikehas been the avowed policy of the Syndicalists, whoseorganization is the Confederation Generale du Travail.''

[27] In fact the General Strike was invented by a LondonerWilliam Benbow, an Owenite, in 1831.

Or, to put it otherwise, the intelligent French workerhas awakened, as he believes, to the fact that Society(Societas) and the State (Civitas) connote two separablespheres of human activity, between which there is noconnection, necessary or desirable. Without the one, man,being a gregarious animal, cannot subsist: while withoutthe other he would simply be in clover. The ``statesman''whom office does not render positively nefariousis at best an expensive superfluity.

Syndicalists have had many violent encounterswith the forces of government. In 1907 and 1908,protesting against bloodshed which had occurred inthe suppression of strikes, the Committee of the C.G. T. issued manifestoes speaking of the Governmentas ``a Government of assassins'' and alludingto the Prime Minister as ``Clemenceau the murderer.''Similar events in the strike at Villeneuve St. Georgesin 1908 led to the arrest of all the leading membersof the Committee. In the railway strike of October,1910, Monsieur Briand arrested the Strike Committee,mobilized the railway men and sent soldiersto replace strikers. As a result of these vigorousmeasures the strike was completely defeated, andafter this the chief energy of the C. G. T. was directedagainst militarism and nationalism.

The attitude of Anarchism to the Syndicalistmovement is sympathetic, with the reservation thatsuch methods as the General Strike are not to beregarded as substitutes for the violent revolutionwhich most Anarchists consider necessary. Theirattitude in this matter was defined at the InternationalAnarchist Congress held in Amsterdam inAugust, 1907. This Congress recommended ``comradesof all countries to actively participate in autonomousmovements of the working class, and todevelop in Syndicalist organizations the ideas ofrevolt, individual initiative and solidarity, which arethe essence of Anarchism.'' Comrades were to``propagate and support only those forms and manifestationsof direct action which carry, in themselves,a revolutionary character and lead to thetransformation of society.'' It was resolved that``the Anarchists think that the destruction of thecapitalist and authoritary society can only be realizedby armed insurrection and violent expropriation,and that the use of the more or less General Strikeand the Syndicalist movement must not make usforget the more direct means of struggle againstthe military force of government.''

Syndicalists might retort that when the movementis strong enough to win by armed insurrectionit will be abundantly strong enough to win by theGeneral Strike. In Labor movements generally, successthrough violence can hardly be expected exceptin circumstances where success without violence isattainable. This argument alone, even if there wereno other, would be a very powerful reason againstthe methods advocated by the Anarchist Congress.

Syndicalism stands for what is known as industrialunionism as opposed to craft unionism. In thisrespect, as also in the preference of industrial topolitical methods, it is part of a movement whichhas spread far beyond France. The distinctionbetween industrial and craft unionism is much dwelton by Mr. Cole. Craft unionism ``unites in a singleassociation those workers who are engaged on a singleindustrial process, or on processes so nearly akinthat any one can do another's work.'' But ``organizationmay follow the lines, not of the work done,but of the actual structure of industry. All workersworking at producing a particular kind of commoditymay be organized in a single Union. . . .The basis of organization would be neither the craftto which a man belonged nor the employer underwhom he worked, but the service on which he wasengaged. This is Industrial Unionism properlyso called.[28]

[28] ``World of Labour,'' pp. 212, 213.

Industrial unionism is a product of America,and from America it has to some extent spread toGreat Britain. It is the natural form of fightingorganization when the union is regarded as the meansof carrying on the class war with a view, not toobtaining this or that minor amelioration, but to aradical revolution in the economic system. This isthe point of view adopted by the ``Industrial Workersof the World,'' commonly known as the I. W. W.This organization more or less corresponds in Americato what the C. G. T. was in France before thewar. The differences between the two are those dueto the different economic circumstances of the twocountries, but their spirit is closely analogous. TheI. W. W. is not united as to the ultimate form whichit wishes society to take. There are Socialists,Anarchists and Syndicalists among its members. But itis clear on the immediate practical issue, that theclass war is the fundamental reality in the presentrelations of labor and capital, and that it is byindustrial action, especially by the strike, thatemancipation must be sought. The I. W. W., like theC. G. T., is not nearly so strong numerically as it issupposed to be by those who fear it. Its influenceis based, not upon its numbers, but upon its powerof enlisting the sympathies of the workers in momentsof crisis.

The labor movement in America has been characterizedon both sides by very great violence. Indeed,the Secretary of the C. G. T., Monsieur Jouhaux,recognizes that the C. G. T. is mild in comparisonwith the I. W. W. ``The I. W. W.,'' he says,``preach a policy of militant action, very necessaryin parts of America, which would not do in France.''[29]A very interesting account of it, from the point ofview of an author who is neither wholly on the sideof labor nor wholly on the side of the capitalist, butdisinterestedly anxious to find some solution of thesocial question short of violence and revolution, isthe work of Mr. John Graham Brooks, called ``AmericanSyndicalism: the I. W. W.'' (Macmillan, 1913).American labor conditions are very different fromthose of Europe. In the first place, the power of thetrusts is enormous; the concentration of capital hasin this respect proceeded more nearly on Marxianlines in America than anywhere else. In the secondplace, the great influx of foreign labor makes thewhole problem quite different from any that arisesin Europe. The older skilled workers, largely Americanborn, have long been organized in the AmericanFederation of Labor under Mr. Gompers. Theserepresent an aristocracy of labor. They tend towork with the employers against the great mass ofunskilled immigrants, and they cannot be regarded asforming part of anything that could be truly calleda labor movement. ``There are,'' says Mr. Cole,``now in America two working classes, with differentstandards of life, and both are at present almostimpotent in the face of the employers. Nor is it possiblefor these two classes to unite or to put forwardany demands. . . . The American Federationof Labor and the Industrial Workers of theWorld represent two different principles ofcombination; but they also represent two differentclasses of labor.''[30] The I. W. W. stands for industrialunionism, whereas the American Federation ofLabor stands for craft unionism. The I. W. W. wereformed in 1905 by a union of organizations, chiefamong which was the Western Federation of Miners,which dated from 1892. They suffered a split by theloss of the followers of Deleon, who was the leader ofthe ``Socialist Labor Party'' and advocated a``Don't vote'' policy, while reprobating violentmethods. The headquarters of the party which heformed are at Detroit, and those of the main bodyare at Chicago. The I. W. W., though it has a lessdefinite philosophy than French Syndicalism, is quiteequally determined to destroy the capitalist system.As its secretary has said: ``There is but one bargainthe I. W. W. will make with the employing class--complete surrender of all control of industry to theorganized workers.''[31] Mr. Haywood, of the WesternFederation of Miners, is an out-and-out followerof Marx so far as concerns the class war and thedoctrine of surplus value. But, like all who are inthis movement, he attaches more importance to industrialas against political action than do the Europeanfollowers of Marx. This is no doubt partlyexplicable by the special circumstances of America,where the recent immigrants are apt to be voteless.The fourth convention of the I. W. W. revised apreamble giving the general principles underlyingits action. ``The working class and the employingclass,'' they say, ``have nothing in common. Therecan be no peace so long as hunger and want arefound among millions of the working people and thefew, who make up the employing class, have all thegood things of life. Between these two classes, astruggle must go on until the workers of the worldorganize as a class, take possession of the earth andthe machinery of production, and abolish the wagesystem. . . . Instead of the conservative motto,`A fair day's wages for a fair day's work,' we mustinscribe on our banner the revolutionary watchword,`Abolition of the wage system.' ''[32]

[29] Quoted in Cole, ib. p. 128.

[30] Ib., p. 135.

[31] Brooks, op. cit., p. 79.

[32] Brooks, op. cit., pp. 86-87.

Numerous strikes have been conducted or encouragedby the I. W. W. and the Western Federationof Miners. These strikes illustrate the class-warin a more bitter and extreme form than is to be foundin any other part of the world. Both sides are alwaysready to resort to violence. The employers havearmies of their own and are able to call upon theMilitia and even, in a crisis, upon the United StatesArmy. What French Syndicalists say about theState as a capitalist institution is peculiarly true inAmerica. In consequence of the scandals thus arising,the Federal Government appointed a Commissionon Industrial Relations, whose Report, issued in 1915,reveals a state of affairs such as it would be difficultto imagine in Great Britain. The report states that``the greatest disorders and most of the outbreaksof violence in connection with industrial `disputesarise from the violation of what are consideredto be fundamental rights, and from the perversionor subversion of governmental institutions''(p. 146). It mentions, among such perversions,the subservience of the judiciary to the mili-tary authorities,[33] the fact that during a labordispute the life and liberty of every man withinthe State would seem to be at the mercy of theGovernor (p. 72), and the use of State troopsin policing strikes (p. 298). At Ludlow (Colorado)in 1914 (April 20) a battle of the militia and theminers took place, in which, as the result of the fireof the militia, a number of women and children wereburned to death.[34] Many other instances of pitchedbattles could be given, but enough has been said toshow the peculiar character of labor disputes in theUnited States. It may, I fear, be presumed that thischaracter will remain so long as a very largeproportion of labor consists of recent immigrants.When these difficulties pass away, as they mustsooner or later, labor will more and more find itsplace in the community, and will tend to feel andinspire less of the bitter hostility which renders themore extreme forms of class war possible. When

that time comes, the labor movement in America willprobably begin to take on forms similar to those ofEurope.

[33] Although uniformly held that the writ of habeas corpuscan only be suspended by the legislature, in these labor disturbancesthe executive has in fact suspended or disregarded thewrit. . . . In cases arising from labor agitations, the judiciaryhas uniformly upheld the power exercised by the military,and in no case has there been any protest against the use ofsuch power or any attempt to curtail it, except in Montana,where the conviction of a civilian by military commission wasannulled'' (``Final Report of the Commission on IndustrialRelations'' (1915) appointed by the United States Congress,''p. 58).

[34] Literary Digest, May 2 and May 16, 1914.

Meanwhile, though the forms are different, theaims are very similar, and industrial unionism,spreading from America, has had a considerableinfluence in Great Britain--an influence naturallyreinforced by that of French Syndicalism. It isclear, I think, that the adoption of industrial ratherthan craft unionism is absolutely necessary if TradeUnionism is to succeed in playing that part in alteringthe economic structure of society which its advocatesclaim for it rather than for the politicalparties. Industrial unionism organizes men, as craftunionism does not, in accordance with the enemywhom they have to fight. English unionism is stillvery far removed from the industrial form, thoughcertain industries, especially the railway men, havegone very far in this direction, and it is notable thatthe railway men are peculiarly sympathetic to Syndicalismand industrial unionism.

Pure Syndicalism, however, is not very likely toachieve wide popularity in Great Britain. Its spiritis too revolutionary and anarchistic for our temperament.It is in the modified form of Guild Socialismthat the ideas derived from the C. G. T. and the I. W.W. are tending to bear fruit.[35] This movement is asyet in its infancy and has no great hold upon the rankand file, but it is being ably advocated by a groupof young men, and is rapidly gaining ground amongthose who will form Labor opinion in years to come.The power of the State has been so much increasedduring the war that those who naturally dislikethings as they are, find it more and more difficult tobelieve that State omnipotence can be the road to themillennium. Guild Socialists aim at autonomy inindustry, with consequent curtailment, but not abolition,of the power of the State. The system whichthey advocate is, I believe, the best hitherto proposed,and the one most likely to secure liberty withoutthe constant appeals to violence which are to befeared under a purely Anarchist regime.

[35] The ideas of Guild Socialism were first set forth in``National Guilds,'' edited by A. R. Orage (Bell & Sons, 1914),and in Cole's ``World of Labour'' (Bell & Sons), first publishedin 1913. Cole's ``Self-Government in Industry'' (Bell &Sons, 1917) and Rickett & Bechhofer's ``The Meaning ofNational Guilds'' (Palmer & Hayward, 1918) should also beread, as well as various pamphlets published by the NationalGuilds League. The attitude of the Syndicalists to GuildSocialism is far from sympathetic. An article in ``TheSyndicalist'' for February, 1914, speaks of it in the followingterms: a Middle-class of the middle-class, with all the shortcomings(we had almost said `stupidities') of the middle-classes writ large across it, `Guild Socialism' stands forthas the latest lucubration of the middle-class mind. It is a`cool steal' of the leading ideas of Syndicalism and a deliberateperversion of them. . . . We do protest against the `State'idea . . . in Guild Socialism. Middle-class people, evenwhen they become Socialists, cannot get rid of the idea that theworking-class is their `inferior'; that the workers need to be`educated,' drilled, disciplined, and generally nursed for a verylong time before they will be able to walk by themselves. Thevery reverse is actually the truth. . . . It is just the plaintruth when we say that the ordinary wage-worker, of averageintelligence, is better capable of taking care of himself than thehalf-educated middle-class man who wants to advise him. Heknows how to make the wheels of the world go round.''

The first pamphlet of the ``National GuildsLeague'' sets forth their main principles. In industryeach factory is to be free to control its ownmethods of production by means of elected managers.The different factories in a given industry are to befederated into a National Guild which will deal withmarketing and the general interests of the industryas a whole. ``The State would own the means ofproduction as trustee for the community; the Guildswould manage them, also as trustees for the community,and would pay to the State a single tax orrent. Any Guild that chose to set its own interestsabove those of the community would be violatingits trust, and would have to bow to the judgment ofa tribunal equally representing the whole body ofproducers and the whole body of consumers. ThisJoint Committee would be the ultimate sovereignbody, the ultimate appeal court of industry. Itwould fix not only Guild taxation, but also standardprices, and both taxation and prices would be periodicallyreadjusted by it.'' Each Guild will beentirely free to apportion what it receives among itsmembers as it chooses, its members being all those whowork in the industry which it covers. ``The distributionof this collective Guild income among themembers seems to be a matter for each Guild to decidefor itself. Whether the Guilds would, sooner or later,adopt the principle of equal payment for every member,is open to discussion.'' Guild Socialism acceptsfrom Syndicalism the view that liberty is not to besecured by making the State the employer: ``TheState and the Municipality as employers have turnedout not to differ essentially from the private capitalist.''Guild Socialists regard the State as consistingof the community in their capacity as consumers,while the Guilds will represent them in their capacityas producers; thus Parliament and the Guild Congresswill be two co-equal powers representing consumersand producers respectively. Above both willbe the joint Committee of Parliament and the GuildCongress for deciding matters involving the interestsof consumers and producers alike. The view of theGuild Socialists is that State Socialism takes accountof men only as consumers, while Syndicalism takesaccount of them only as producers. ``The problem,''say the Guild Socialists, ``is to reconcile the twopoints of view. That is what advocates of NationalGuilds set out to do. The Syndicalist has claimedeverything for the industrial organizations of producers,the Collectivist everything for the territorialor political organizations of consumers. Both areopen to the same criticism; you cannot reconcile twopoints of view merely by denying one of them.''[36]But although Guild Socialism represents an attemptat readjustment between two equally legitimate pointsof view, its impulse and force are derived fromwhat it has taken over from Syndicalism. Like Syndicalism;it desires not primarily to make work betterpaid, but to secure this result along with others bymaking it in itself more interesting and more democraticin organization.

[36] The above quotations are all from the first pamphlet of theNational Guilds League, ``National Guilds, an Appeal to TradeUnionists.''

Capitalism has made of work a purely commercialactivity, a soulless and a joyless thing. But substitutethe national service of the Guilds for the profiteering ofthe few; substitute responsible labor for a saleable commodity;substitute self-government and decentralizationfor the bureaucracy and demoralizing hugeness of themodern State and the modern joint stock company; andthen it may be just once more to speak of a ``joy inlabor,'' and once more to hope that men may be proudof quality and not only of quantity in their work. Thereis a cant of the Middle Ages, and a cant of ``joy inlabor,'' but it were better, perhaps, to risk that cantthan to reconcile ourselves forever to the philosophy ofCapitalism and of Collectivism, which declares that workis a necessary evil never to be made pleasant, and thatthe workers' only hope is a leisure which shall be longer,richer, and well adorned with municipal amenities.[37]

Whatever may be thought of the practicabilityof Syndicalism, there is no doubt that the ideas whichit has put into the world have done a great dealto revive the labor movement and to recall it to certainthings of fundamental importance which it hadbeen in danger of forgetting. Syndicalists considerman as producer rather than consumer. They aremore concerned to procure freedom in work than toincrease material well-being. They have revived thequest for liberty, which was growing somewhatdimmed under the regime of Parliamentary Socialism,and they have reminded men that what our modernsociety needs is not a little tinkering here and there,nor the kind of minor readjustments to which theexisting holders of power may readily consent, buta fundamental reconstruction, a sweeping away ofall the sources of oppression, a liberation of men'sconstructive energies, and a wholly new way ofconceiving and regulating production and economicrelations. This merit is so great that, in view of it,all minor defects become insignificant, and this meritSyndicalism will continue to possess even if, as adefinite movement, it should be found to have passedaway with the war.

PART II

PROBLEMS OF THE FUTURE

CHAPTER IV

WORK AND PAY

THE man who seeks to create a better order ofsociety has two resistances to contend with: one thatof Nature, the other that of his fellow-men. Broadlyspeaking, it is science that deals with the resistanceof Nature, while politics and social organization arethe methods of overcoming the resistance of men.

The ultimate fact in economics is that Nature onlyyields commodities as the result of labor. The necessityof SOME labor for the satisfaction of our wantsis not imposed by political systems or by the exploitationof the working classes; it is due to physicallaws, which the reformer, like everyone else, mustadmit and study. Before any optimistic economicproject can be accepted as feasible, we must examinewhether the physical conditions of production imposean unalterable veto, or whether they are capable ofbeing sufficiently modified by science and organization.Two connected doctrines must be consideredin examining this question: First, Malthus' doctrineof population; and second, the vaguer, but veryprevalent, view that any surplus above the barenecessaries of life can only be produced if most menwork long hours at monotonous or painful tasks,leaving little leisure for a civilized existence orrational enjoyment. I do not believe that eitherof these obstacles to optimism will survive a closescrutiny. The possibility of technical improvementin the methods of production is, I believe, sogreat that, at any rate for centuries to come, therewill be no inevitable barrier to progress in the generalwell-being by the simultaneous increase of commoditiesand diminution of hours of labor.

This subject has been specially studied by Kropotkin,who, whatever may be thought of his generaltheories of politics, is remarkably instructive, concreteand convincing in all that he says about thepossibilities of agriculture. Socialists and Anarchistsin the main are products of industrial life, andfew among them have any practical knowledge on thesubject of food production. But Kropotkin is anexception. His two books, ``The Conquest of Bread''and ``Fields, Factories and Workshops,'' are veryfull of detailed information, and, even making greatallowances for an optimistic bias, I do not think itcan be denied that they demonstrate possibilities inwhich few of us would otherwise have believed.

Malthus contended, in effect, that populationalways tends to increase up to the limit of subsistence,that the production of food becomes more expensiveas its amount is increased, and that therefore, apartfrom short exceptional periods when new discoveriesproduce temporary alleviations, the bulk of mankindmust always be at the lowest level consistent withsurvival and reproduction. As applied to the civilizedraces of the world, this doctrine is becominguntrue through the rapid decline in the birth-rate;but, apart from this decline, there are many otherreasons why the doctrine cannot be accepted, at anyrate as regards the near future. The century whichelapsed after Malthus wrote, saw a very greatincrease in the standard of comfort throughout thewage-earning classes, and, owing to the enormousincrease in the productivity of labor, a far greaterrise in the standard of comfort could have beeneffected if a more just system of distribution hadbeen introduced. In former times, when one man'slabor produced not very much more than was neededfor one man's subsistence, it was impossible eithergreatly to reduce the normal hours of labor, orgreatly to increase the proportion of the populationwho enjoyed more than the bare necessaries of life.But this state of affairs has been overcome by modernmethods of production. At the present moment,not only do many people enjoy a comfortable incomederived from rent or interest, but about half thepopulation of most of the civilized countries in theworld is engaged, not in the production of commodities,but in fighting or in manufacturing munitionsof war. In a time of peace the whole of thishalf might be kept in idleness without making theother half poorer than they would have been if thewar had continued, and if, instead of being idle, theywere productively employed, the whole of what theywould produce would be a divisible surplus over andabove present wages. The present productivity oflabor in Great Britain would suffice to produce anincome of about 1 pound per day for each family, evenwithout any of those improvements in methods whichare obviously immediately possible.

But, it will be said, as population increases, theprice of food must ultimately increase also asthe sources of supply in Canada, the Argentine,Australia and elsewhere are more and more used up.There must come a time, so pessimists will urge, whenfood becomes so dear that the ordinary wage-earnerwill have little surplus for expenditure upon otherthings. It may be admitted that this would be truein some very distant future if the population were tocontinue to increase without limit. If the wholesurface of the world were as densely populated asLondon is now, it would, no doubt, require almostthe whole labor of the population to produce thenecessary food from the few spaces remaining foragriculture. But there is no reason to suppose thatthe population will continue to increase indefinitely,and in any case the prospect is so remote that it maybe ignored in all practical considerations.

Returning from these dim speculations to thefacts set forth by Kropotkin, we find it proved inhis writings that, by methods of intensive cultivation,which are already in actual operation, the amount offood produced on a given area can be increased farbeyond anything that most uninformed persons supposepossible. Speaking of the market-gardeners inGreat Britain, in the neighborhood of Paris, and inother places, he says:--

They have created a totally new agriculture. Theysmile when we boast about the rotation system havingpermitted us to take from the field one crop every year,or four crops each three years, because their ambition isto have six and nine crops from the very same plot ofland during the twelve months. They do not understandour talk about good and bad soils, because they makethe soil themselves, and make it in such quantities as tobe compelled yearly to sell some of it; otherwise it wouldraise up the level of their gardens by half an inch everyyear. They aim at cropping, not five or six tons ofgrass on the acre, as we do, but from 50 to 100 tons ofvarious vegetables on the same space; not 5 pound sworth ofhay, but 100 pounds worth of vegetables, of the plainest description,cabbage and carrots.[38]

[38] Kropotkin, ``Fields, Factories and Workshops,'' p. 74.

As regards cattle, he mentions that Mr. Championat Whitby grows on each acre the food of two orthree head of cattle, whereas under ordinary highfarming it takes two or three acres to keep each headof cattle in Great Britain. Even more astonishingare the achievements of the Culture Maraicheresround Paris. It is impossible to summarize theseachievements, but we may note the generalconclusion:--

There are now practical Maraichers who venture tomaintain that if all the food, animal and vegetable,necessary for the 3,500,000 inhabitants of the Departmentsof Seine and Seine-et-Oise had to be grown ontheir own territory (3250 square miles), it could begrown without resorting to any other methods of culturethan those already in use--methods already tested on alarge scale and proved successful.[39]

[39] Ib. p. 81.

It must be remembered that these two departmentsinclude the whole population of Paris.

Kropotkin proceeds to point out methods bywhich the same result could be achieved without longhours of labor. Indeed, he contends that the greatbulk of agricultural work could be carried on bypeople whose main occupations are sedentary, andwith only such a number of hours as would serve tokeep them in health and produce a pleasant diversification.He protests against the theory of exces-sive division of labor. What he wants is INTEGRATION,``a society where each individual is a producer ofboth manual and intellectual work; where each able-bodied human being is a worker, and where eachworker works both in the field and in the industrialworkshop.''[40]

[40] Kropotkin, ``Field, Factories, and Workshops,'' p. 6.

These views as to production have no essentialconnection with Kropotkin's advocacy of Anarchism.They would be equally possible under StateSocialism, and under certain circumstances theymight even be carried out in a capitalistic regime.They are important for our present purpose, notfrom any argument which they afford in favor of oneeconomic system as against another, but from thefact that they remove the veto upon our hopes whichmight otherwise result from a doubt as to the productivecapacity of labor. I have dwelt upon agriculturerather than industry, since it is in regardto agriculture that the difficulties are chiefly supposedto arise. Broadly speaking, industrial productiontends to be cheaper when it is carried on ona large scale, and therefore there is no reason inindustry why an increase in the demand should leadto an increased cost of supply.

Passing now from the purely technical and materialside of the problem of production, we cometo the human factor, the motives leading men towork, the possibilities of efficient organization ofproduction, and the connection of production withdistribution. Defenders of the existing systemmaintain that efficient work would be impossible withoutthe economic stimulus, and that if the wagesystem were abolished men would cease to do enoughwork to keep the community in tolerable comfort.Through the alleged necessity of the economic motive,the problems of production and distributionbecome intertwined. The desire for a more justdistribution of the world's goods is the main inspirationof most Socialism and Anarchism. We must,therefore, consider whether the system of distributionwhich they propose would be likely to lead toa diminished production.

There is a fundamental difference between Socialismand Anarchism as regards the question of distribution.Socialism, at any rate in most of itsforms, would retain payment for work done or forwillingness to work, and, except in the case of personsincapacitated by age or infirmity, would makewillingness to work a condition of subsistence, or atany rate of subsistence above a certain very lowminimum. Anarchism, on the other hand, aims atgranting to everyone, without any conditions whatever,just as much of all ordinary commodities ashe or she may care to consume, while the rarer com-modities, of which the supply cannot easily beindefinitely increased, would be rationed and dividedequally among the population. Thus Anarchismwould not impose any OBLIGATIONS of work, thoughAnarchists believe that the necessary work could bemade sufficiently agreeable for the vast majority ofthe population to undertake it voluntarily. Socialists,on the other hand, would exact work. Some ofthem would make the incomes of all workers equal,while others would retain higher pay for the workwhich is considered more valuable. All these differentsystems are compatible with the common ownershipof land and capital, though they differ greatlyas regards the kind of society which they wouldproduce.

Socialism with inequality of income would notdiffer greatly as regards the economic stimulus towork from the society in which we live. Such differencesas it would entail would undoubtedly be to thegood from our present point of view. Under theexisting system many people enjoy idleness andaffluence through the mere accident of inheriting landor capital. Many others, through their activities inindustry or finance, enjoy an income which is certainlyvery far in excess of anything to which theirsocial utility entitles them. On the other hand, itoften happens that inventors and discoverers, whosework has the very greatest social utility, are robbedof their reward either by capitalists or by the failureof the public to appreciate their work until toolate. The better paid work is only open to those whohave been able to afford an expensive training, andthese men are selected in the main not by merit butby luck. The wage earner is not paid for his willingnessto work, but only for his utility to the employer.Consequently, he may be plunged into destitution bycauses over which he has no control. Such destitutionis a constant fear, and when it occurs it producesundeserved suffering, and often deteriorationin the social value of the sufferer. These are a fewamong the evils of our existing system from thestandpoint of production. All these evils we mightexpect to see remedied under any system of Socialism.

There are two questions which need to be consideredwhen we are discussing how far work requiresthe economic motive. The first question is: Mustsociety give higher pay for the more skilled or sociallymore valuable work, if such work is to be done insufficient quantities? The second question is: Couldwork be made so attractive that enough of it wouldbe done even if idlers received just as much of theproduce of work? The first of these questions concernsthe division between two schools of Socialists:the more moderate Socialists sometimes concede thateven under Socialism it would be well to retainunequal pay for different kinds of work, while themore thoroughgoing Socialists advocate equalincomes for all workers. The second question, on theother hand, forms a division between Socialists andAnarchists; the latter would not deprive a man ofcommodities if he did not work, while the former ingeneral would.

Our second question is so much more fundamentalthan our first that it must be discussed at once, andin the course of this discussion what needs to be saidon our first question will find its place naturally.

Wages or Free Sharing?--``Abolition of thewages system'' is one of the watchwords commonto Anarchists and advanced Socialists. But in itsmost natural sense it is a watchword to which onlythe Anarchists have a right. In the Anarchist conceptionof society all the commoner commodities willbe available to everyone without stint, in the kindof way in which water is available at present.[41] Advo-cates of this system point out that it applies alreadyto many things which formerly had to be paid for,e.g., roads and bridges. They point out that itmight very easily be extended to trams and localtrains. They proceed to argue--as Kropotkin doesby means of his proofs that the soil might be madeindefinitely more productive--that all the commonerkinds of food could be given away to all who demandedthem, since it would be easy to produce them in quantitiesadequate to any possible demand. If this systemwere extended to all the necessaries of life,everyone's bare livelihood would be secured, quiteregardless of the way in which he might choose tospend his time. As for commodities which cannotbe produced in indefinite quantities, such as luxuriesand delicacies, they also, according to the Anarchists,are to be distributed without payment, but on a systemof rations, the amount available being dividedequally among the population. No doubt, thoughthis is not said, something like a price will haveto be put upon these luxuries, so that a man maybe free to choose how he will take his share: one manwill prefer good wine, another the finest Havanacigars, another pictures or beautiful furniture. Presumably,every man will be allowed to take such luxuriesas are his due in whatever form he prefers, therelative prices being fixed so as to equalize thedemand. In such a world as this, the economic stimulusto production will have wholly disappeared, andif work is to continue it must be from other motives.[42]

[41] ``Notwithstanding the egotistic turn given to the publicmind by the merchant-production of our century, the Communisttendency is continually reasserting itself and trying tomake its way into public life. The penny bridge disappears beforethe public bridge; and the turnpike road before the freeroad. The same spirit pervades thousands of other institutions.Museums, free libraries, and free public schools; parks andpleasure grounds; paved and lighted streets, free for everybody'suse; water supplied to private dwellings, with a growing tendencytowards disregarding the exact amount of it used by theindividual, tramways and railways which have already begun tointroduce the season ticket or the uniform tax, and will surelygo much further on this line when they are no longer privateproperty: all these are tokens showing in what direction furtherprogress is to be expected.''--Kropotkin, ``Anarchist Communism.''

[42] An able discussion of this question, at of various others,from the standpoint of reasoned and temperate opposition toAnarchism, will be found in Alfred Naquet's ``L'Anarchie et leCollectivisme,'' Paris, 1904.

Is such a system possible? First, is it technicallypossible to provide the necessaries of life in suchlarge quantities as would be needed if every man andwoman could take as much of them from the publicstores as he or she might desire?

The idea of purchase and payment is so familiarthat the proposal to do away with it must be thoughtat first fantastic. Yet I do not believe it is nearlyso fantastic as it seems. Even if we could all havebread for nothing, we should not want more thana quite limited amount. As things are, the cost ofbread to the rich is so small a proportion of theirincome as to afford practically no check upon theirconsumption; yet the amount of bread that they consumecould easily be supplied to the whole populationby improved methods of agriculture (I am not speakingof war-time). The amount of food that peopledesire has natural limits, and the waste that wouldbe incurred would probably not be very great. Asthe Anarchists point out, people at present enjoyan unlimited water supply but very few leave thetaps running when they are not using them. Andone may assume that public opinion would be opposedto excessive waste. We may lay it down, I think,that the principle of unlimited supply could beadopted in regard to all commodities for which thedemand has limits that fall short of what can beeasily produced. And this would be the case, if productionwere efficiently organized, with the necessariesof life, including not only commodities, but alsosuch things as education. Even if all education werefree up to the highest, young people, unless they wereradically transformed by the Anarchist regime,would not want more than a certain amount of it.And the same applies to plain foods, plain clothes,and the rest of the things that supply our elementaryneeds.

I think we may conclude that there is no technicalimpossibility in the Anarchist plan of freesharing.

But would the necessary work be done if the individualwere assured of the general standard of comforteven though he did no work?

Most people will answer this question unhesitatinglyin the negative. Those employers in particularwho are in the habit of denouncing theiremployes as a set of lazy, drunken louts, will feel quitecertain that no work could be got out of them exceptunder threat of dismissal and consequent starvation.But is this as certain as people are inclined to sup-pose at first sight? If work were to remain whatmost work is now, no doubt it would be very hard toinduce people to undertake it except from fear ofdestitution. But there is no reason why work shouldremain the dreary drudgery in horrible conditionsthat most of it is now.[43] If men had to be tempted towork instead of driven to it, the obvious interest ofthe community would be to make work pleasant. Solong as work is not made on the whole pleasant, itcannot be said that anything like a good state ofsociety has been reached. Is the painfulness of workunavoidable?

[43] ``Overwork is repulsive to human nature--not work. Overworkfor supplying the few with luxury--not work for the well-being of all. Work, labor, is a physiological necessity, a necessityof spending accumulated bodily energy, a necessity whichis health and life itself. If so many branches of useful work areso reluctantly done now, it is merely because they mean overwork,or they are improperly organized. But we know--oldFranklin knew it--that four hours of useful work every daywould be more than sufficient for supplying everybody with thecomfort of a moderately well-to-do middle-class house, if we allgave ourselves to productive work, and if we did not waste ourproductive powers as we do waste them now. As to the childishquestion, repeated for fifty years: `Who would do disagreeablework?' frankly I regret that none of our savants has ever beenbrought to do it, be it for only one day in his life. If there isstill work which is really disagreeable in itself, it is onlybecause our scientific men have never cared to consider themeans of rendering it less so: they have always known that therewere plenty of starving men who would do it for a few pencea day.'' Kropotkin, ```Anarchist Communism.''

At present, the better paid work, that of thebusiness and professional classes, is for the most partenjoyable. I do not mean that every separatemoment is agreeable, but that the life of a man whohas work of this sort is on the whole happier thanthat of a man who enjoys an equal income withoutdoing any work. A certain amount of effort, andsomething in the nature of a continuous career, arenecessary to vigorous men if they are to preservetheir mental health and their zest for life. A considerableamount of work is done without pay. Peoplewho take a rosy view of human nature might havesupposed that the duties of a magistrate would beamong disagreeable trades, like cleaning sewers; buta cynic might contend that the pleasures of vindictivenessand moral superiority are so great that there isno difficulty in finding well-to-do elderly gentlemenwho are willing, without pay, to send helpless wretchesto the torture of prison. And apart from enjoymentof the work itself, desire for the good opinion ofneighbors and for the feeling of effectiveness is quitesufficient to keep many men active.

But, it will be said, the sort of work that a manwould voluntarily choose must always be exceptional:the great bulk of necessary work can never be anythingbut painful. Who would choose, if an easy lifewere otherwise open to him, to be a coal-miner, or astoker on an Atlantic liner? I think it must be concededthat much necessary work must always remaindisagreeable or at least painfully monotonous, andthat special privileges will have to be accorded tothose who undertake it, if the Anarchist system is everto be made workable. It is true that the introductionof such special privileges would somewhat mar therounded logic of Anarchism, but it need not,I think, make any really vital breach in its system.Much of the work that needs doing could be renderedagreeable, if thought and care were givento this object. Even now it is often only long hoursthat make work irksome. If the normal hours ofwork were reduced to, say, four, as they could be bybetter organization and more scientific methods, avery great deal of work which is now felt as a burdenwould quite cease to be so. If, as Kropotkin suggests,agricultural work, instead of being the lifelongdrudgery of an ignorant laborer living verynear the verge of abject poverty, were the occasionaloccupation of men and women normally employed inindustry or brain-work; if, instead of being conductedby ancient traditional methods, without anypossibility of intelligent participation by the wage-earner, it were alive with the search for new methodsand new inventions, filled with the spirit of freedom,and inviting the mental as well as the physical cooperationof those who do the work, it might becomea joy instead of a weariness, and a source of healthand life to those engaged in it.

What is true of agriculture is said by Anarchiststo be equally true of industry. They maintainthat if the great economic organizations whichare now managed by capitalists, without considerationfor the lives of the wage-earners beyondwhat Trade Unions are able to exact, were turnedgradually into self-governing communities, in whichthe producers could decide all questions of methods,conditions, hours of work, and so forth, there wouldbe an almost boundless change for the better: grimeand noise might be nearly eliminated, the hideousnessof industrial regions might be turned into beauty, theinterest in the scientific aspects of production mightbecome diffused among all producers with any nativeintelligence, and something of the artist's joy in creationmight inspire the whole of the work. All this,which is at present utterly remote from the reality,might be produced by economic self-government.We may concede that by such means a very largeproportion of the necessary work of the world couldultimately be made sufficiently agreeable to be preferredbefore idleness even by men whose bare livelihoodwould be assured whether they worked or not.As to the residue let us admit that special rewards,whether in goods or honors or privileges, would haveto be given to those who undertook it. But this neednot cause any fundamental objection.

There would, of course, be a certain proportionof the population who would prefer idleness. Providedthe proportion were small, this need not matter.And among those who would be classed as idlersmight be included artists, writers of books, mendevoted to abstract intellectual pursuits--in short,all those whom society despises while they are aliveand honors when they are dead. To such men, thepossibility of pursuing their own work regardlessof any public recognition of its utility would beinvaluable. Whoever will observe how many of ourpoets have been men of private means will realize howmuch poetic capacity must have remained undevelopedthrough poverty; for it would be absurd tosuppose that the rich are better endowed by naturewith the capacity for poetry. Freedom for such men,few as they are, must be set against the waste ofthe mere idlers.

So far, we have set forth the arguments in favorof the Anarchist plan. They are, to my mind, sufficientto make it seem possible that the plan mightsucceed, but not sufficient to make it so probable thatit would be wise to try it.

The question of the feasibility of the Anarchistproposals in regard to distribution is, like so manyother questions, a quantitative one. The Anarchistproposals consist of two parts: (1) That all the commoncommodities should be supplied ad lib. to allapplicants; (2) That no obligation to work, or economicreward for work, should be imposed on anyone.These two proposals are not necessarily inseparable,nor does either entail the whole system of Anarchism,though without them Anarchism would hardly bepossible. As regards the first of these proposals, itcan be carried out even now with regard to somecommodities, and it could be carried out in no verydistant future with regard to many more. It is aflexible plan, since this or that article of consumptioncould be placed on the free list or taken of ascircumstances might dictate. Its advantages aremany and various, and the practice of the world tendsto develop in this direction. I think we may concludethat this part of the Anarchists' system mightwell be adopted bit by bit, reaching gradually thefull extension that they desire.

But as regards the second proposal, that thereshould be no obligation to work, and no economicreward for work, the matter is much more doubtful.Anarchists always assume that if their schemes wereput into operation practically everyone would work;but although there is very much more to be saidfor this view than most people would concede at firstsight, yet it is questionable whether there is enoughto be said to make it true for practical purposes.Perhaps, in a community where industry had becomehabitual through economic pressure, public opinionmight be sufficiently powerful to compel most mento work;[44] but it is always doubtful how far sucha state of things would be permanent. If publicopinion is to be really effective, it will be necessaryto have some method of dividing the community intosmall groups, and to allow each group to consumeonly the equivalent of what it produces. This willmake the economic motive operative upon the group,which, since we are supposing it small, will feel thatits collective share is appreciably diminished by eachidle individual. Such a system might be feasible, butit would be contrary to the whole spirit of Anarchismand would destroy the main lines of its economicsystem.

[44] ``As to the so-often repeated objection that nobody wouldlabor if he were not compelled to do so by sheer necessity, weheard enough of it before the emancipation of slaves in America,as well as before the emancipation of serfs in Russia; and wehave had the opportunity of appreciating it at its just value.So we shall not try to convince those who can be convinced onlyby accomplished facts. As to those who reason, they ought toknow that, if it really was so with some parts of humanity atits lowest stages--and yet, what do we know about it?--or ifit is so with some small communities, or separate individuals,brought to sheer despair by ill-success in their struggle againstunfavorable conditions, it is not so with the bulk of the civilizednations. With us, work is a habit, and idleness an artificialgrowth.'' Kropotkin, ``Anarchist Communism,'' p. 30.

The attitude of orthodox Socialism on this questionis quite different from that of Anarchism.[45]Among the more immediate measures advocated in the``Communist Manifesto'' is ``equal liability of allto labor. Establishment of industrial armies, especiallyfor agriculture.'' The Socialist theory is that,in general, work alone gives the right to the enjoymentof the produce of work. To this theory therewill, of course, be exceptions: the old and the veryyoung, the infirm and those whose work is temporarilynot required through no fault of their own.But the fundamental conception of Socialism, in regardto our present question, is that all who canshould be compelled to work, either by the threatof starvation or by the operation of the criminallaw. And, of course, the only kind of work recognizedwill be such as commends itself to the authorities.Writing books against Socialism, or againstany theory embodied in the government of the day,would certainly not be recognized as work. No morewould the painting of pictures in a different stylefrom that of the Royal Academy, or producing playsunpleasing to the censor. Any new line of thoughtwould be banned, unless by influence or corruptionthe thinker could crawl into the good graces of thepundits. These results are not foreseen by Socialists,because they imagine that the Socialist Statewill be governed by men like those who now advocateit. This is, of course, a delusion. The rulers of theState then will bear as little resemblance to the pres-ent Socialists as the dignitaries of the Church afterthe time of Constantine bore to the Apostles. Themen who advocate an unpopular reform are exceptionalin disinterestedness and zeal for the publicgood; but those who hold power after the reformhas been carried out are likely to belong, in the main,to the ambitious executive type which has in all agespossessed itself of the government of nations. Andthis type has never shown itself tolerant of oppositionor friendly to freedom.

[45] ``While holding this synthetic view on production, theAnarchists cannot consider, like the Collectivists, that aremuneration which would be proportionate to the hours of laborspent by each person in the production of riches may be anideal, or even an approach to an ideal, society.'' Kropotkin,``Anarchist Communism,'' p. 20.

It would seem, then, that if the Anarchist planhas its dangers, the Socialist plan has at least equaldangers. It is true that the evils we have been foreseeingunder Socialism exist at present, but the purposeof Socialists is to cure the evils of the worldas it is; they cannot be content with the argumentthat they would make things no worse.

Anarchism has the advantage as regards liberty,Socialism as regards the inducements to work. Canwe not find a method of combining these two advantages?It seems to me that we can.

We saw that, provided most people work inmoderation, and their work is rendered as productiveas science and organization can make it, there is nogood reason why the necessaries of life should not besupplied freely to all. Our only serious doubt wasas to whether, in an Anarchist regime, the motives forwork would be sufficiently powerful to prevent a dan-gerously large amount of idleness. But it would beeasy to decree that, though necessaries should be freeto all, whatever went beyond necessaries should onlybe given to those who were willing to work--not, asis usual at present, only to those in work at anymoment, but also to all those who, when they happenednot to be working, were idle through no faultof their own. We find at present that a man whohas a small income from investments, just sufficientto keep him from actual want, almost always prefersto find some paid work in order to be able to affordluxuries. So it would be, presumably, in such acommunity as we are imagining. At the same time, theman who felt a vocation for some unrecognized workof art or science or thought would be free to follow hisdesire, provided he were willing to ``scorn delightsand live laborious days.'' And the comparativelysmall number of men with an invincible horror ofwork--the sort of men who now become tramps--might lead a harmless existence, without any gravedanger of their becoming sufficiently numerous to bea serious burden upon the more industrious. In thisways the claims of freedom could be combined withthe need of some economic stimulus to work. Sucha system, it seems to me, would have a far greaterchance of success than either pure Anarchism or pureorthodox Socialism.

Stated in more familiar terms, the plan we areadvocating amounts essentially to this: that a certainsmall income, sufficient for necessaries, should besecured to all, whether they work or not, and that alarger income, as much larger as might be warrantedby the total amount of commodities produced, shouldbe given to those who are willing to engage in somework which the community recognizes as useful. Onthis basis we may build further. I do not think itis always necessary to pay more highly work whichis more skilled or regarded as socially more useful,since such work is more interesting and more respectedthan ordinary work, and will therefore often bepreferred by those who are able to do it. But wemight, for instance, give an intermediate income tothose who are only willing to work half the usualnumber of hours, and an income above that of mostworkers to those who choose a specially disagreeabletrade. Such a system is perfectly compatible withSocialism, though perhaps hardly with Anarchism.Of its advantages we shall have more to say at alater stage. For the present I am content to urgethat it combines freedom with justice, and avoidsthose dangers to the community which we have foundto lurk both in the proposals of the Anarchists andin those of orthodox Socialists.

CHAPTER V

GOVERNMENT AND LAW

GOVERNMENT and Law, in their very essence, consistof restrictions on freedom, and freedom is thegreatest of political goods.[46] A hasty reasoner mightconclude without further ado that Law and governmentare evils which must be abolished if freedomis our goal. But this consequence, true or false, cannotbe proved so simply. In this chapter we shallexamine the arguments of Anarchists against law andthe State. We shall proceed on the assumption thatfreedom is the supreme aim of a good social system;but on this very basis we shall find the Anarchistcontentions very questionable.

[46] I do not say freedom is the greatest of ALL goods: the bestthings come from within--they are such things as creative art,and love, and thought. Such things can be helped or hinderedby political conditions, but not actually produced by them; andfreedom is, both in itself and in its relation to these other goodsthe best thing that political and economic conditions can secure.

Respect for the liberty of others is not a naturalimpulse with most men: envy and love of power leadordinary human nature to find pleasure in interferenceswith the lives of others. If all men's actionswere wholly unchecked by external authority, weshould not obtain a world in which all men would befree. The strong would oppress the weak, or themajority would oppress the minority, or the loversof violence would oppress the more peaceable people.I fear it cannot be said that these bad impulses areWHOLLY due to a bad social system, though it mustbe conceded that the present competitive organizationof society does a great deal to foster the worstelements in human nature. The love of power is animpulse which, though innate in very ambitious men,is chiefly promoted as a rule by the actual experienceof power. In a world where none could acquiremuch power, the desire to tyrannize would be muchless strong than it is at present. Nevertheless, Icannot think that it would be wholly absent, andthose in whom it would exist would often be men ofunusual energy and executive capacity. Such men,if they are not restrained by the organized will ofthe community, may either succeed in establishinga despotism, or, at any rate, make such a vigorousattempt as can only be defeated through a periodof prolonged disturbance. And apart from the loveor political power, there is the love of power overindividuals. If threats and terrorism were not preventedby law, it can hardly be doubted that cruelty wouldbe rife in the relations of men and women, and ofparents and children. It is true that the habits ofa community can make such cruelty rare, but thesehabits, I fear, are only to be produced through theprolonged reign of law. Experience of backwoodscommunities, mining camps and other such placesseems to show that under new conditions men easilyrevert to a more barbarous attitude and practice.It would seem, therefore, that, while human natureremains as it is, there will be more liberty for all in acommunity where some acts of tyranny by individualsare forbidden, than in a community where the lawleaves each individual free to follow his every impulse.But, although the necessity of some form of governmentand law must for the present be conceded, it isimportant to remember that all law and governmentis in itself in some degree an evil, only justifiable whenit prevents other and greater evils. Every use of thepower of the State needs, therefore, to be very closelyscrutinized, and every possibility of diminishing itspower is to be welcomed provided it does not lead toa reign of private tyranny.

The power of the State is partly legal, partlyeconomic: acts of a kind which the State dislikes canbe punished by the criminal law, and individuals whoincur the displeasure of the State may find it hardto earn a livelihood.

The views of Marx on the State are not veryclear. On the one hand he seems willing,, like themodern State Socialists, to allow great power to theState, but on the other hand he suggests that whenthe Socialist revolution has been consummated, theState, as we know it, will disappear. Among themeasures which are advocated in the CommunistManifesto as immediately desirable, there are severalwhich would very greatly increase the power ofthe existing State. For example, ``Centralizationof credit in the hands of the State, by means of anational bank with State capital and an exclusivemonopoly;'' and again, ``Centralization of themeans of communication and transport in the handsof the State.'' But the Manifesto goes on to say:

When, in the course of development, class distinctionshave disappeared, and all production has been concentratedin the hands of a vast association of the wholenation, the public power will lose its political character.Political power, properly so called, is merely the organisedpower of one class for oppressing another. If theproletariat during its contest with the bourgeoisie iscompelled, by the force of circumstances, to organizeitself as a class, if, by means of a revolution, it makesitself the ruling class, and, as such, sweeps away byforce the old conditions of production, then it will,along with these conditions, have swept away the conditionsfor the existence of class antagonisms, and ofclasses generally, and will thereby have abolished itsown supremacy as a class.

In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classesand class antagonisms, we shall have an association, inwhich; the free development of each is the condition forthe free development of all.[47]

[47] Communist Manifesto, p. 22.

This attitude Marx preserved in essentialsthroughout his life. Accordingly, it is not to bewondered at that his followers, so far as regards theirimmediate aims, have in the main become out-and-outState Socialists. On the other hand, the Syndicalists,who accept from Marx the doctrine of the classwar, which they regard as what is really vital in histeaching, reject the State with abhorrence and wishto abolish it wholly, in which respect they are at onewith the Anarchists. The Guild Socialists, thoughsome persons in this country regard them as extremists,really represent the English love of compromise.The Syndicalist arguments as to the dangers inherentin the power of the State have made them dissatisfiedwith the old State Socialism, but they areunable to accept the Anarchist view that society candispense altogether with a central authority.Accordingly they propose that there should be twoco-equal instruments of Government in a community,the one geographical, representing the consumers,and essentially the continuation of the democraticState; the other representing the producers, organized,not geographically, but in guilds, after themanner of industrial unionism. These two author-ities will deal with different classes of questions.Guild Socialists do not regard the industrial authorityas forming part of the State, for they contendthat it is the essence of the State to be geographical;but the industrial authority will resemble the presentState in the fact that it will have coercive powers,and that its decrees will be enforced, when necessary.It is to be suspected that Syndicalists also, much asthey object to the existing State, would not objectto coercion of individuals in an industry by theTrade Union in that industry. Government withinthe Trade Union would probably be quite as strictas State government is now. In saying this we areassuming that the theoretical Anarchism of Syndicalistleaders would not survive accession to power,but I am afraid experience shows that this is not avery hazardous assumption.

Among all these different views, the one whichraises the deepest issue is the Anarchist contentionthat all coercion by the community is unnecessary.Like most of the things that Anarchists say, thereis much more to be urged in support of this viewthan most people would suppose at first sight. Kropotkin,who is its ablest exponent, points out howmuch has been achieved already by the method of freeagreement. He does not wish to abolish governmentin the sense of collective decisions: what he does wishto abolish is the system by which a decision is en-forced upon those who oppose it.[48] The whole systemof representative government and majority rule isto him a bad thing.[49] He points to such instancesas the agreements among the different railway systemsof the Continent for the running of throughexpresses and for co-operation generally. He pointsout that in such cases the different companies orauthorities concerned each appoint a delegate, and thatthe delegates suggest a basis of agreement, which hasto be subsequently ratified by each of the bodies ap-pointing them. The assembly of delegates has nocoercive power whatever, and a majority can donothing against a recalcitrant minority. Yet this hasnot prevented the conclusion of very elaborate systemsof agreements. By such methods, so Anarchistscontend, the USEFUL functions of government can becarried out without any coercion. They maintainthat the usefulness of agreement is so patent as tomake co-operation certain if once the predatorymotives associated with the present system of privateproperty were removed.

[48] ``On the other hand, the STATE has also been confused withGOVERNMENT. As there can be no State without government, ithas been sometimes said that it is the absence of government,and not the abolition of the State, that should be the aim.

``It seems to me, however, that State and government representtwo ideas of a different kind. The State idea implies quiteanother idea to that of government. It not only includes theexistence of a power placed above society, but also a territorialconcentration and a concentration of many functions of the lifeof society in the hands of a few or even of all. It implies newrelations among the members of society.

``This characteristic distinction, which perhaps escapesnotice at first sight, appears clearly when the origin of the Stateis studied.'' Kropotkin, ``The State.'' p. 4.

[49] Representative government has accomplished its historicalmission; it has given a mortal blow to Court-rule; and byits debates it has awakened public interest in public questions.But, to see in it the government of the future Socialist society,is to commit a gross error. Each economical phase of lifeimplies its own political phase; and it is impossible to touch thevery basis of the present economical life--private property--without a corresponding change in the very basis of the political